Altium Limited, a global leader in Smart System Design Automation, 3D PCB design (Altium Designer) and embedded software development (TASKING), announces the immediate availability of their TASKING ISO 26262 Support Program, an offering that assists TASKING compiler users within the automotive industry with ISO 26262 certification.

Automotive embedded systems must be underpinned by high reliability and safety. This remains of critical concern to the automotive industry and follows a number of embarrassing, and potentially life-threatening, failures of coding in automotive embedded systems.

Automotive systems safety issues compound when numerous systems must interoperate, while providing passenger comfort and features. Embedded software forms a critical path in systems such as Driver Assistance, Propulsion, In-Vehicle Dynamics, and Active and Passive Safety Devices. To mitigate the compounding safety risks associated with these embedded systems, the ISO 26262 standard provides guidance along with requirements and processes for testing and certifying automotive embedded software and development tools for safety.

With this in mind, Altium has launched its TASKING ISO 26262 Support Program to provide automakers and parts suppliers with a qualification kit and optional qualification services to comply with ISO 26262 assessment requirements related to confidence in use of TASKING compilers in safety relevant systems.

Through the TASKING compiler ISO 26262 qualification kit, Altium provides a welldefined cost-efficient solution, that supports both ”increased confidence from use” and ”validation of the software tool” qualification methods. It provides customers with all the necessary evidence that ISO 26262 requires for the qualification of a software tool. This evidence includes the following elements:

• Safety Manual, describing how to configure the compiler for safety-related projects, including recommended use cases and mitigation strategies for potential errors.
• Test Reports produced by the Perennial C Compiler Validation Suite test suite, which demonstrates conformance to ISO C90 and ISO C99 language definition.
• Defect Reports & Mitigations, provided for all defects found through Altium internal testing and reported by users. These reports are updated and published on a daily basis.
• Development Process Guide, describing the software development process applied to produce the compiler, and covers project management, requirements management, defect analysis & resolution, testing, and quality assurance.

TASKING's optional qualification services are offered to integrate the guidance provided by the safety kit with customer specific use-cases. These services provide access to the in-depth knowledge of the tool-supplier about the compiler and its development process which is valuable for tool classification against other safety standards such as DO-178C/DO-330 and EN 50128.

”For over 20 years TASKING’s C compilers are used for programming automotive electronic systems and they provide highly-effective optimization techniques, combined with industry proven code generation stability and reliability required for today’s safety critical powertrain and chassis control ECUs,” said Harm-Andre Verhoef, Product Manager TASKING at Altium. ”Through our state-of-the-art Viper technology based compilers we offer the most advanced development techniques for complex multi-core based automotive applications, now backed up with our ISO 26262 Support Program for assisting customers in their efforts to qualify their use of the TASKING compiler to functional safety standards.” 

The Support Program also provides a suite of professional services from Altium, including special ISO 26262 priority support and guidance for commercial off-the-shelf software tool qualification, where the qualification activities are partly performed by the “tool developer” and partly by the “tool user”.

Altium’s ISO 26262 Support Program is available now for select TASKING VX-toolsets. Pricing starts at EUR 9,900 (USD 13,500) for a full qualification kit targeting the v4.3r1 and subsequent TriCore compiler release of the TASKING VX-toolset for TriCore/AURIX.